Our Fellows
The Opportunity Agenda’s Communications Institute Fellows are media-ready experts on some of the country’s most urgent challenges, coming largely from communities most affected by those challenges. For journalists seeking voices with a grassroots perspective that links economic opportunity, criminal justice, immigrant opportunity, and racial justice issues to the lived experiences of Americans, Communications Fellows are ideal spokespeople.
Josephine Kalipeni
Executive Director, Family Values @ WorkJosephine Kalipeni is committed to transforming systems and policies, including dismantling racism and toxic narratives of individualism, scarcity and “the deserving.” She leads with the belief that those most impacted by the problems are closest to the solutions, and has worked in policy advocacy, organizing, and strategy development for two...
Get To know JosephineBassem Kawar
Advocacy Specialist, The Campaign to TAKE ON HATEBassem Kawar is a community organizer from Chicago, and currently the Advocacy Specialist for the Campaign to TAKE ON HATE, a project of the National Network for Arab American Communities. Bassem graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from DePaul University, where he was a student organizer. He began his career...
Get To know BassemThomas Kennedy
Political Director, Florida Immigrant CoalitionBorn in Argentina, Thomas Kennedy came to the United States with his parents at the age of 10, first living in New Jersey before settling down in Miami. After living as an undocumented immigrant for over a decade and seeing the daily struggles his parents overcame to have a better...
Get To know ThomasQainat Khan
Communications Strategist, ACLUQainat Khan is a communications strategist with the national ACLU, working on communications and public education related to criminal legal reform. Before joining the national organization, Qainat was the communications director at the ACLU of Maine. A focus of her work in Maine was to be in coalition with and...
Get To know QainatValerie Kiebala
Managing Editor, Solitary WatchValerie Kiebala is a radical feminist writer, organizer, and artist centering relationships and firsthand experiences to produce groundbreaking narrative work towards dismantling oppressive structures and uplifting our people. She is currently the Communications Director at Straight Ahead.
Get To know ValerieJanet Kim
Communications Director, Caring Across GenerationsJanet Kim is a communications strategist with a diverse background in consulting, media, campaigning and storytelling. As the Communications Director for Caring Across Generations, she's working to shape narratives to make dignified care a right at every stage of life while making the work of caregiving - and the paid...
Get To know JanetDr. James A. Kirk
Professor, Columbia UniversityDr. James has over a decade of leadership experience in various social service fields. He is a well-respected writer, educator, clinician, and speaker on issues pertaining to social justice. His primary research focuses on deconstructing issues of mass incarceration — specifically as it pertains to trauma, cognitive development, culpability, and...
Get To know Dr. James A.James Knoepp
Deputy Legal Director, Southern Poverty Law Center – Immigrant Justice ProjectJim Knoepp manages the SPLC’s immigrant justice initiative, which combats workplace exploitation and other human rights abuses of immigrants. He has been with SPLC since 2008. Prior to joining SPLC, he served as a staff attorney and litigation director for the Legal Aid Justice Center in Charlottesville, Virginia, and as...
Get To know JamesJesse Krimes
Jesse Krimes is an artist whose work explores societal mechanisms of power and control with a focus on criminal and racial justice. While serving a six-year prison sentence he produced and smuggled out numerous bodies of work, established prison art programs, and co-created artist collectives. After his release, he co-founded...
Get To know JessePatrice Lawrence
Executive Director, UndocuBlack NetworkNamed one of the top 300 influencers in Washington, D.C, Patrice Lawrence is the Executive Director of the UndocuBlack Network. In her time at UBN, she is steadily leading the charge on what currently and formerly undocumented Black immigrants need by making their demands clear on a local and national...
Get To know Patrice